


Withering of Decay (Fabrics)

by Katrartt



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst and Feels, Hot Mess Adrien Agreste, Inspired by Miraculous Ladybug, MLB, Mentioned Gabriel Agreste, Miraculous AU, POV Adrien Agreste
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-21 22:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18125900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katrartt/pseuds/Katrartt
Summary: Three years after the death of Gabriel Agreste and Hawkmoth, Adrien has almost no one left, and has fallen into a lonely place.Drabble where everyone is a mess ;))





	Withering of Decay (Fabrics)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by certain vibes and lyrics of:
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/track/6G8ybvaNEW2nn1wMzvKjRc
> 
> (Fabrics, Felly)
> 
> enjoy this really quick and angsty drabble

Adrien woke with a startle and a groan as the door to his apartment slammed open, and the familiar sound of keys were thrown on the counter in the kitchen. A girl with long brown hair moaned as her bleary eyes opened next to him, her body naked and radiating heat next to his. He heard heels clicking on the low-quality prefinished hardwood floors of his apartment, and his stomach dropped as the dreaded nightmare stood just inside the doorway of his room.

 

“Nathalie…..” He muttered under his breath. The girl next to him made a sound of confusion before suddenly scrambling to gather the sheets and cover herself. Adrien made no such moves, only staring at the ceiling with a bored expression. He watched out the corner of his eye as Nathalie told the girl, “You can go.” She quickly gathered her clothes that were on the floor, walking around the bed. Adrien only lifted his torso slightly to nod the girl a goodbye, unfazed as she asked for him to call her.

 

The woman who carried the entirety of  _ Gabriel _ set her bag down and crossed her arms, a look of disappointment crossing her features.

 

“Again?”

 

He didn't want to dignify her with any kind of response, didn't want to respond to anything at all, at that moment.

 

"Look, Adrien, you can't…okay, I know just how the stress gets," Nathalie sighed. Adrien turned away from her, rolling his eyes. She didn't  _ have _ to come all the way to his apartment in the middle of the day to wake him up. She didn't  _ have  _ to do any of what she always did. Pretended to care. Pretended that everything was fine.   
  
He frowned at what she said, too.  _ I know just how the stress gets. _ She had said it all the time. It was like her personal mantra around him. And then she always followed up with an explanation and pep talk about how he would just have to get through it.   
  
She'd been saying it for years.    
  
He  _ hated _ it.    
  
Because Nathalie  _ didn't _ know.  _ She didn't know _ . She would never know. No one would. Not even the one person,  _ that beautiful midnight-haired, blue-eyed, girl _ who he used to believe he could say anything to, always be honest with, the one person he trusted with his whole  _ heart _ . Not his own father, not his cold, dead mother, and certainly not  _ Nathalie _ .   
  
He huffed, hoping the monologue would be short this time. He lifted his torso, and fully turned his attention to Nathalie, knowing full well that he didn't feel well enough to fall back asleep. He always had a hard time sleeping when he was in a bad mood.   
  
He hadn't been sleeping very much lately. The girls helped cover up the guilt, but even with them he had a hard time filling the parts missing in himself.   
  
Nathalie's disappointed face only fell further as he gave her the usual look of daggers in his eyes. With the way they narrowed, his vision caught the gray streaks in her hair that she failed to die back to black, the way the years had really worn on her face. No wrinkle cream could fix it to what it was when he was just a boy, and Gabriel first hired her.   
  
Nathalie shifted, and he snapped out of his thoughts, expecting to be in the middle of a lecture.    
  
Instead, much to his surprise, Nathalie was only watching him, silently mirroring his facial expression. She finally opened her mouth and Adrien readied himself, but all she asked was, "Are you hungover?"   
  
Adrien decided to ignore the pounding in his temples, the way his tongue felt as if it was made of paper, tasted bitter and sour and old, in silent rebellion to her question. He  _ tsked _ as he turned his gaze forward, to stare blankly at the wall. "No."   
  
He heard Nathalie snort, and turned his head to shoot her a look as he leaned back on his hands. He knew Nathalie could see right through him, though. She had watched him come home, wake up from, and find himself in every predicament imaginable since he was fourteen. His obtaining of harsh hangovers wasn't new to her, and he wouldn't have been able to hide it anyway.   
  
So he took a deep breath, wishing she would just leave. "Is there a reason you're here?" He murmured. She would hear him though. The emptiness of his silent apartment carried his voice everywhere.    
  
Nathalie finally averted her gaze, as if regretful. "Of course,"  She said, "I needed to know if you'll be able to make it to the fashion show tonight. It's the kick-off for fashion week, Adrien. The company  _ needs _ it's face-"   
  
"Well, I guess  _ you _ can go, since you make all of the decisions anyway." Abruptly throwing off his covers, Adrien stood and stalked past Nathalie. She grabbed his arm, but he shrugged it off.   
  
"Adrien, please, think about it. You've done-"   
  
"Nothing, Nathalie, I get it. But quite frankly, neither have you when  _ it  _ involves me," He snapped as he continued into his kitchen. Nathalie followed him and leaned against the door frame as he opened his fridge, throwing her hands up in frustration.

 

“I still don't get it! What's so wrong with what we're doing, huh, Adrien? With what  _ you  _ do?”  She dropped her arms and crossed them again. “Look,  we need you. This isn't about you right now, okay? If we don't get investors and buyers soon, the company is going bankrupt, and I  _ know _ you know that. We need the starchild, Adrien, the people like that.”

 

“Well  _ fuck  _ the people then,” He said, pulling out materials to make cereal. Nathalie shook her head, as if in disbelief.

 

“Adrien, if the company goes, you won't even be able to take money out of Daddy’s account anymore, because you already  _ spent _ the inheritance on drugs and condoms. You won't be able to pay for even,  _ this mess- _ ” -she gestured around to the whole apartment- “-and you  _ certainly _ can't pay for your cheap tequila shots anymore.” Adrien poured the milk into his bowl after his cereal, and narrowed his eyes at her.

 

“Whatever, this isn't  _ my _ fault,” He said. Nathalie guffawed, shaking her head again.

 

“This is  _ absolutely _ all your fault! If you hadn't used your c-”

 

“That's not true! He's dead because of  _ himself _ , and  _ his _ choices.”

 

“It doesn't matter what he did, it was  _ your  _ claw that touched him!” Nathalie snapped. Adrien scoffed, taking a bite of his cereal. “Besides, that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we need you tonight, tomorrow, and every other day of this week, because  _ your _ face brings revenue. You're going.” She straightened, clearly not changing her mind. Adrien only kept eating, resigned in silent frustration.

 

“Fine,” was all he muttered. Nathalie turned for a moment to grab her purse, and brought out a small container, clearly full of Ibuprofen pills. She walked forward and set it on the counter next to Adrien, leaning on it with one hand. Inhaling deeply, Nathalie's features softened at the shadows on Adrien’s face. She raised a hand to his cheek, and he averted his eyes, setting his bowl down on the counter.

 

“It's going to be okay, Adrien,” She said, her voice quieter now. She turned Adrien’s face down to meet hers, his gaze following. He raised a hand to hers, and leaned into it, relishing the comfort of a nurturing touch. He rarely received these from Nathalie. From anyone.  _ They were so precious, these moments between them.  _

 

“Is it, though?” He whispered, his brow furrowed, seeming in concern of himself. Nathalie offered a small, reserved smile.

 

“If course it is. We just have to….work on it,” Nathalie told him. She let her hand fall after a few moments, and Adrien had to push down the urge to stop and pull it back, to wrap his arms around Nathalie and beg for her to call him  _ child _ as she used to during his schoolboy days. To let her stroke his hair and promise that she'd never betray him like his father did. Adrien was legally an orphan, yet Nathalie had stayed and still been there for him,  _ even now… _

 

She turned her back to the counter and rested her hands on it, letting her head fall. “Of course, working on it will take time. Please just...don't go out and stay late drinking, and don't invite anymore girls like the one you had this morning for the rest of the week, okay?”

 

Adrien crossed his arms, leaning against the counter with his back as Nathalie did, though he was almost a foot and a half taller. He lowered his face to look at Nathalie, and joked, “She was just a friend.”

 

Nathalie snorted again, but it seemed truly amused this time. “Pfft, yeah.  _ Definitely _ . If you two were such good friends, why don't you tell me her first name?” She suggested. His eyes darted all over the room, his mind racing. It dawned on him that he had  _ no clue _ who that girl was, where they had met, and what  _ exactly _ happened the night before.  _ Even if he had a pretty good guess… _

 

“U-uh, uhm….” Adrien racked his brain for  _ something _ …. “Bridgette!” He blurted. Nathalie scoffed.

 

“Ah, yes, your cousin's wife. You're quite good at this name game."

 

“Hey, don't make fun of me, it was the first name that came to mind!” He protested. “And hey, since when do you care who I sleep with?” 

 

Nathalie only smiled. “Oh, trust me, I don't. Just don't bring them over anymore, you have things to get done,” She said. She checked her watch, and her face faltered and clicked back into the exhausted look she wore every minute. In a moment, the words became all business, pure disappointed boss. Adrien startled at the way he felt so disheartened, at the way all of the previous amusement of the moment was gone. Nathalie handed him the container of Ibuprofen, no smile to come with it. “Here, take these. I have to go, soon.”

 

As he took them from her hand, he turned to lean forward on the counter, letting Nathalie straighten to walk away. He felt his face contort into a frown.

 

_ What was that? _

 

It was like a switch had been flipped, like Nathalie wouldn't allow herself to open up to Adrien at all anymore _. It was as if she wouldn't let herself help him like that.  _ The thought made Adrien’s blood boil. Of course. He'd witnessed it a million times, the way Nathalie had closed herself off almost completely ever since that fateful day three years ago in his father's basement.

It wasn't  _ his _ fault. Okay, maybe it  _ was _ , a little bit, but he shouldn't be punished for doing what was  _ right _ . And at the same time, why should he have to subject himself to the constant torture of  _ Nathalie _ . Why she did this to him, why she made the guilt build higher than it ever had to be, why she toyed with his emotions, building him up and then tearing him down again in mere minutes, he didn't know. But he hated it. He hated so many things she  _ did. _ So many things she  _ wanted. _

 

_ He was pissed. _

 

“Hey, Nathalie,” He said. Her head snapped up as she grabbed her keys. He leaned on the counter fully and lowered his head down at her. “Say, if you don't care who I sleep with, then you wouldn't care if I….slept with  _ you _ ?”

 

Nathalie flinched, “W-what?”

 

Adrien’s lips curled into a smirk dripping with whole, heavy, hate.

 

“Yeah,  _ Nat, _ why not? It won't be any different than you and Rolfe from Human Resources, or Phillip the Photographer, or that  _ one _ investor, _what was his name_ , Damian? And, oh!”

 

“Adrien-”

 

“I'm sure it wouldn't anything different than when you fucked my dear-old- _ dad _ -”

 

“ _ Adrien-” _

 

“You know  _ what _ , Nathalie? Why the hell are you even here? You could've just called me, you didn't have to check up on me in person!” He pushed, “You're not my  _ mother _ .”

 

Nathalie's nostrils flared as she pulled her purse close to her body. She pulled out a second bottle of pills, this one of Advil, and slammed onto the counter, never leaving Adrien’s gaze. He watched as her eyes turned as sharp as spears, as her lips curled back into a sneer. He watched as Nathalie snapped.

 

“Well,  _ shit,  _ _I might as well be_ ,” Nathalie hissed, “Because  _ your _ mother is  _ dead." _

 

Adrien's stomach dropped as Nathalie let the bite of her words sink in. She laughed, but it was a cold, hollow, sound. She snapped, "and neither she nor your cold, sick man of a father are coming back to raise you like a  _ real boy _ . Pull your shit together and get over the fact that one killed herself and you murdered the other, because the rest of us  _ have _ , and you're going to find yourself _cold_ and _alone_ and without  _any_ help soon. It isn't  _ anyone's  _ fault but yours that you're lonely and guilty and need to whore yourself around just to feel something. At least  _ I _ do it because I  _ like _ the sex.”

 

Nathalie turned and stormed towards the door, opening it violently. Before she closed the door, she paused. Without turning, she said softer, but not weaker, “I am the only one you have left, Adrien. You pushed away  _ everyone _ else. I'm not a good person, but I'm still here...and yet, I don't feel like I’ll stay here for long.”

 

Then, quieter, “I  _ do _ understand how the stress gets. I'll see you tonight.”

 

She shut door behind her, gentler than he expected.

 

He still jolted when it shut, though.

 

Adrien stood frozen in the silence of his kitchen, staring blankly at the door, waiting for  _ something _ .

 

When he finally realized that it wasn't going to open again, and his cereal was soggy, he decided to take a cold shower. He ignored the familair feeling of loss that washed over him, the one that came  _ every single time _ Nathalie departed.

  
He wished the water could wash him, and all of his damned _feelings_  away, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not not do anything with this, depending on how you guys like it, on how I feel, if I ever get inspiration to go anywhere, etc. I hope you guys liked it though :))))) It was fun to write.


End file.
